Also, any investment in bus transfers would be the responsibility of SDOT and Metro, not ST. I don’t believe ST owns or operates any of the bus facilities.

Reading the tea leaves in the Seattle Time’s article, it seems like UW is looking to develop affordable housing on that stop, to meet the city’s requirement for UW’s next wave of growth. But a rebuild could also include an easement for a bus lane on the west side of the station, I suppose.

Do you really think it would make the transfers much better? It seems like buses would spend a fair amount of time slogging their way over there, and in the end, you haven’t saved much time (and probably lost it from a system standpoint). It seems like if they want to do that, they could do that tomorrow, and just eliminate the parking lot and have the buses run there.

I think the idea is to replace these hundred or so jobs with a hundred or so apartments. What it really comes down to is that they put the bus center in the right place, they just should have put the train station there as well. Then you would have better transfers, and more people could walk to the station from their homes.

If the laundry site was turned into the new transit center, then the existing transit center can be redeveloped into a taller building (85 to 125 feet). The buses could loop into the station between McClellan and Winthrop. The signal at Forest could go away or be only for pedestrians.

It could be a winning idea in a number of ways.

Past neighborhood plans have already toyed about eliminating the transit center but assumed that the laundry was fixed into place. With that situation changed, those recent plans could be dusted off and refined to actually move the transit center.

As I’ve mentioned in past comments on the subject, there is plenty of room for on-street layovers and bus transfers without needing the laundry facility or the current transit center. The way it works is basically like this. Thru-routes (7 and 106) continue to stop on Ranier, just like they’re currently doing. The only route that need special treatment are the ones that end there (8 and 48), since they need somewhere to turn around the bus and wait between runs. For those routes, Metro can use Forest St., just north of the station, so that the southern end of route 8 looks like this, and the terminus of the 48 looks like this. The key to making this work is to eliminate all of the on-street parking on Forest St. and make it one-way. Once this is done, you have plenty room for buses to maneuver, load/unload passengers, and layover between trips.

“Do you really think it would make the transfers much better? It seems like buses would spend a fair amount of time slogging their way over there”

For the 48, it is a real improvement because it avoids the need to cross Rainier twice. The bus is already on the west side of Rainier as it approaches McClellan, only to cross Rainier to turn left on McClellan, only to have to cross Rainier right back again on foot. A right turn from Rainier to McClellan has much less delay, and you don’t need to cross Rainier again, on foot to reach the station. On top of this, those headed to the east/southeast of the station are much better positioned to use the pedestrian bridge, rather than waiting at the stoplights. The existing transit center is slightly better for those headed to the corner of MLK and McClellan, but that’s about it. And, many of these riders would be on the 8, not the 48, anyway.

For the 8, getting to my proposed location does require an extra stoplight, but for those transferring to Link, it’s something of a wash, since you’ve got to cross Rainier, anyway. For those who, today, would be walking north/east from Mt. Baker Transit Center, you can just add an on-street bus stop at the corner of MLK and McClellan, and they would basically see no impact.

That leaves the 14 as the only remaining route serving the area. Currently, it does an awkward detour, pretending to serve its legacy tail, which moving the stop to the other side of Rainier would make worse. But, the reason for serving that tail is dubious to begin with, since it’s both low density and never really outside the walkshed of the Link Station anyway – it’s a very pleasant walk, taking about 10 minutes, down tree-lined streets, using the pedestrian bridge to cross the MLK/Rainier monstrosity. Once the tail is gone, the Link station makes perfect sense as a turnaround point, and no longer feels like a detour. (The cost of the trolley wire can be paid for by selling the land occupied by the current transit center for development).

“What it really comes down to is that they put the bus center in the right place, they just should have put the train station there as well.” The location of the current transit center feels very hemmed in, as it is impossible to approach on foot from any direction, without crossing either Rainier, MLK, or McClellan. On top of that, you’ve got a big track field to the east, forcing all foot traffic to detour around, to either Mt. Baker Blvd. or McClellan. At least the current station location gives you a pedestrian bridge to quickly reach the neighborhood to the east, without needing to cross those busy streets. The island around the transit center doesn’t have much in the way of useful destinations – basically, a starbucks, a bank, a gas station, and an abandoned building. The only reason to go there at all is purely artificial, because Metro forces you to go there in order to get a bus.

I’m a little confused as to what exactly the 48 does to get to the transit center. I assume that heading towards the center it takes a left on McClellan, then a right on MLK and a right into the station. Heading out, it simply exits on Rainier and takes a right.

What you are suggesting does seem quite a bit better. You can drop people off right next to the train station (no crossing Rainier). When leaving, the bus makes a left to get onto Rainier. That might take a while, as you have to wait for the pedestrian crossing cycle, as well as the heavily favored traffic on Rainier. But if you made that left turn only, then the pedestrian cycle and the turn cycle would happen at the same time (the crosswalk is only on the south side of the street).

Another alternative would be to add a bus-only left turn lane on Rainier. The left turn would occur at the same time as the crosswalk as well. It isn’t as convenient as your idea, but it significantly speeds up the bus and would be faster for the bus than your idea, if the bus could trigger the left arrow. If the area around McClellan ever gets built up (which is what everyone wants) then there will be a lot more pedestrians and bikes around there. That would make the two turns you suggest (right onto McClellan, left onto 26th) a bit time consuming. Even now the left turn from McClellan to 26th can take a while, as McClellan is an arterial.

I think it is worth looking at the long term plans. The RapidRide+ routes would swap the southern tails of the 7 and 48. That means the 48 would continue on Rainier Avenue to Rainier Beach, while the 7 would end at Mount Baker. My guess is more people transfer from MBS to the 48 than the 7, simply because it covers more. This change (which is highly likely, unlike other parts of the long range plan) would mean that most of the train to bus transfers would occur on the street (from the new through-routing 48 to Link).

They suggest a host of other changes, including the following:

1214 — Similar to the 14, except without the little spur, ending at Mount Baker
3033 — An extended version of the 27, ending at Mount Baker
3997 — Replaces the southern part of the 8; does not stop at Mount Baker, but connects the Central Area to Beacon Hill.

Again, it means the same number of routes (two) along 23rd ending in Mount Baker. But all those buses are minor, and coverage in nature. None of them would be close to the 8 in terms of frequency. Metro also suggests another bus:

3996 — Similar to the eastern part of the 50 (Seward Park) but one that goes only from Mount Baker Station to Rainier Beach Station.

So that means an additional coverage bus ending in Mount Baker, approaching from the south.

So in terms of buses that terminate there, it means one bus from the north on Rainier Avenue, two buses from the north, originating east of 23rd, and one bus from the south on Rainier. The only bus that is frequent would be the new version of the 7, which probably won’t have that many transfers.

While most of the buses aren’t frequent, they still need layover space, and with four routes, I’m not sure they can all fit along that street. I think the biggest improvement would be for the new 7. The two buses from the northeast would be about the same, assuming a left turn arrow was added for 26th (otherwise they might spend a long time taking that left). The bus from the south would be worse off.

Overall, it just doesn’t seem worth it. I don’t think Metro wants to sell the land, and there will be fewer train to bus transfers there. I think the key issue is how the new 7 terminates. Your idea makes sense, but I think that could also be achieved via a left turn arrow on Rainier, into the transit center.

The location of the current transit center feels very hemmed in, as it is impossible to approach on foot from any direction, without crossing either Rainier, MLK, or McClellan.

As opposed to the train station, which forces people to cross *both* Rainier and MLK.

At least the current station location gives you a pedestrian bridge to quickly reach the neighborhood to the east, without needing to cross those busy streets.

What? Are you seriously defending the infamous pedestrian bridge? That is the one that is routinely ignored, while pedestrians jaywalk. That lead to the infamous incident where the cop hit the young woman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j7tijew7xk). That bridge? That bridge is terrible. There is a reason why so many people jaywalk. They don’t want to walk up and down, round and round. It is especially crazy to do that to get to a station that is then elevated (up, down, up — sounds like an aerobics class). I mean it is great if you are trying to get in shape, but if you are just trying to get to work (or school) it stinks.

The Mount Baker station is terrible. It is terrible in terms of pedestrian access as well as potential development. There is literally a green belt to the west, cutting off potential ridership from that direction. The vast majority of people who walk there have to cross both streets, and often that means cutting across the transit center (https://goo.gl/maps/zsqSxdZLhgn). It makes transfers to the buses more difficult, whether the buses are passing through, or ending near by. If it at the transit center, it would mean a lot more people would be able to walk there quickly, and the bus transfers would be faster.

Metro has a strange definition of a transit center. The first transit center I experienced was Bellevue Transit Center, which had timed transfers and was right downtown, so it seems like an ideal solution as a downtown hub. But later transit centers like Issaquah are in the middle of nowhere so they lose most of their benefits for non-drivers. And Mt Baker Station seems to be mainly layover space. So is that what a transit center means, a bus-parking satellite? Metro was wise enough not to route the 7 through it; it just passes by. But the 8 used to zigzag through it. When Metro split the 8 and 38 it terminated both of them there. But that just makes it even worse for through riders: they still have to zigzag, and now they have to wait for the other route to start. Of course they try to avoid doing this; they find another way instead, like transferring to the 7 or 48, or walking to the 7 from Othello-land.

Yeah, although I don’t think it will ever be lowered into a trench. That would speed things up a little, but not a lot (around two minutes by my estimation). It would still cost a fair amount of money, and be very disruptive. Look how some folks in Ballard are using the threat of disruption to screw up the Ballard proposal. I just don’t see it happening, unless we need it from a headway perspective (which seems unlikely).

Seattle is talking about lowering the speed limit on MLK from 30 to 25, like it has already done on NE 65th Street (!). If Link is forced to go down to 25 mph too, that would make the speed discrepency between 25 mph on the surface and 55 mph in a trench. Conversely, if Link remains at 35 mph, it would screw up the signal timings at the intersections because you’d then have one more variable to coordinate (Link running at a different speed than cars).

It is weird that it has taken Toronto so long to improve their streetcar system. It is huge, with 700 stops and close to 300,000 riders a day. But then again, San Fransisco has struggled with their surface lines as well. It is just hard to get that right of way, even when it is obviously a great value.

The point is, transit is transit. Saying “Streetcars work way better when you kick out the cars.” is like saying “big buses work way better when you kick out the cars”, or “purple buses work way better when you kick out the cars”. It implies that there is something special about streetcars that make them run fast without cars, when buses also run fast without cars. I suppose you could say “streetcars run much slower than buses in mixed traffic” (which is true) but that is a different thing.

Your over zealousness for buses is making you read way more into the article than need be. People in Toronto are now enjoying their streetcars more than before. Why can’t you leave it at that and not turn the article into a streetcar vs bus article. The merits of bus vs streetcar have more than harped on…give it a rest!

I have no problem with the article. I was talking about the comment. It makes sense to focus on right of way for both buses and streetcars, especially in a city like Seattle. If you read the next paragraph of my comment, that should be obvious (it is a short paragraph — it shouldn’t be too hard to read).

You seem to be the one trying to stir up a streetcar versus bus fight, making stupid assumptions about a simple comment. Holy shit, I specifically point out that Toronto and San Fransisco — too cities with streetcar lines — should have had right of way granted to them years ago. I even go so far as to point out how fucking great and important the Toronto streetcar system is (with “with 700 stops and close to 300,000 riders a day”) and yet you think I’m downplaying its importance! Jesus, it is like you are trying to start a pissing match and not even reading what I wrote.

Look, the concept isn’t that difficult. Of course Toronto — a city with a massive existing streetcar system carrying massive numbers of people — should have more right of way for those vehicles. Of course San Fransisco — with a smaller, yet still substantial surface rail system — should have the same. Both should also have extra right of way for buses. The same is true for Seattle, a city which does not have, nor will ever have a huge streetcar system. Saying “buses should have good right of way, too” simply adds relevance to the issue, for Seattle, which is supposed to be the focus of this blog.

Do you think anyone on this site (regular commentor or contributor) does not have an affinity for buses? Really? That would be weird. Why go on a website that is focused on a subject, if you don’t like it? Maybe there are anti-transit folks that occasionally comment, but those seem rare.

Commenting on the Seattle Transit Blog and not liking buses is like commenting on a Los Angeles Lakers website, but not liking basketball. I mean, sure, some of the players may be cute, but my guess is most everyone on the site enjoys watching hoops.

Eyeman doesn’t actually care about car tabs or if any of his initiatives make the ballot or pass. The initiative process itself is how he makes his money, he’s counting on $30 tabs being popular enough to attrack donors so he can pay himself.

I like the Urbanist’s spin on the election. However, I don’t think any Democrats lost over the car tab issue, except maybe in the Seattle mayoral race. Rather, Sen. Chase lost, in part, because she opposed ST3, and appears to still oppose it.

The same can be said for Sen. Miloscia, Rep. Harmsworth, and Rep. Hargrove. They didn’t just campaign against car tabs. They campaigned against Sound Transit. Sen. Fain didn’t campaign against ST or car tabs. He lost for #MeToo reasons.

Oh, I almost forgot Rep. Muri, the principled conservative from the same district as Sen. O’Ban, who was not up for re-election. Muri also is dependably anti-ST, for consistent ideological reasons, and lost by several points in a traditionally R-leaning district.

I don’t think any Democrats lost over the car tab issue, except maybe in the Seattle mayoral race.

I don’t remember it being an issue. There were a lot of things going on — votes were split among a lot of candidates — but I don’t remember car tabs being an issue at all.

I think in general Washington State just caught a “blue wave”. Issues like 405 tolls or car tabs weren’t that important. Chase versus Salomon was an exception. I think it is quite possible that Chase’s opposition to ST3 played a part in her demise. But I also think she might not have been that popular, and as an incumbent losing the endorsement of both the Seattle Times and The Stranger can be a killer. If your opponent is younger, less experienced, running to the left of you, has a better field organization *and* the endorsement of the Seattle Times, you are probably toast.

There’s nothing great about the installation of plastic bulbs as a symbolic gesture or a political statement. That’s a lightly used bus stop serviced by lightly ridden routes on a lightly travelled section of 108th. It’s an answer to a problem that doesn’t exist at that location. And it’s only adding to the confusing patchwork of changes that have been made to that road.

Small projects in lightly-used places can spread to large projects in widespread places. Metro has been testing battery-electric buses on two of the lowest-volume routes (including the 226 you’re such a great expert on). The purpose is not just to evaluate converting routes in low-volume areas like Beaux Arts to batter, but to use them on higher-volume routes too. The initial deployment on low-volume routes is to limit the harm in case they malfunction during the initial phase. Similarly, this stop may not be as much about political priority and tokenism, but about having less political opposition to overcome. You’re a political science expert so you know about the tactic of fanagling things in incrementally.

I would like to see King County decriminalize car tab evasion. A study should be done to see if a disproportionate number of any group … males, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, unemployed etc … are penalized for not having current car tabs on their cars, and if any group is, then we need to reform car tab enforcement.

I’m pretty sure this has already happened (more or less). It is harder to tow a car, because there are a lot of poor people who depend on it, or live in it. Welcome to America, Sam. Where billionaires get giant tax subsidies, and families live in their cars.

Cars work way better when you kick out the Streetcars… duh! It doesn’t help the transit image when a stupid streetcar project like SLUT F’s up traffic and then complains that the 1-2 people on the SC need traffic priority.

Ride-shares aren’t the most efficient way to move lots of people around cities.

My take home from this article was that KC Metro needs to abandon the PBnJ approach and focus bus hours on routes that are at least, less dismal. Dismissing this as “just a smart phone ‘thang'” is pretty telling. Why, yes…Being able to pop in a destination and get a reasonable time/$$$ answer is actually a big deal… Something Dial-a-Ride didn’t deliver.

They’re solutions for different locations. Metro’s app-a-ride experiment in Eastgate/Somerset is precisely the kind where on-demand or semi-fixed vans can extend the reach of transit to areas where a fixed-route bus isn’t practical (because a bus would have to arbitrarily choose one street, but 80% of the people don’t live near that street). If the service area is small, it will never take long for the van to finish whatever it’s doing and come to you. Jarrett is not as categorically opposed to this as it might seem. Buried in the article is a couple sentences saying it might be justified as coverage service. The examples in the article are not fringe cases like Fairwood where dial-a-ride has long existed, but the average routes in Santa Clara VTA, which is more like South King County as a whole. You wouldn’t replace all the non-trunk routes in South King County with app-vans, but some people are advocating precisely that in some cities. They’re advocating for microtransit to fill the gaps in places like Wallingford and Capitol Hill rather than adding and rerouting fixed-bus routes, and the elephant in the room, converting parking and GP lanes to transit lanes. People assume the buses can’t get any faster, but they’re being artificially crippled by traffic. A true high-quality bus network would have buses zooming by between stops.

“Superficially, it might seem that offering riders a more convenient service—especially one that comes directly to their door—would increase ridership.”

This is another crux of the issue. Some people won’t take a bus if they’d have to walk a couple blocks to it. I knew somebody who wouldn’t take a bus from 5th & Wall to 95th & Aurora even though it went practically door to door, because buses just weren’t his thing. If he had no other way he’d take the bus, but if someone was away weekends and lent him his truck, he’d rather use that. These are the kinds of people we’re chasing after. The question is, is this a wise use of limited tax resources, to attract people who won’t take fixed-route buses even when they’re there? Or will take them but grumble the whole time saying it should go to their house.

Some people won’t take a bus if they’d have to walk a couple blocks to it.

Yes, but as you suggest, these people just won’t use transit. They might take a cab, but that isn’t transit.

Let me give you an example: I live about four blocks from the 41. It runs every every ten minutes, and can take me to Northgate or downtown. Would I rather have front door service? Of course, but at what cost. Imagine they say they will now pick me up. I call them use my smartphone to order a ride and they say it will take 15 minutes. Not bad, I guess. But along the way, they will pick up other riders. OK, makes sense. But now instead of following the major arterials, we are going back and forth within the neighborhood, picking up people. Instead of taking about ten minutes to get to Northgate, it takes twenty. Add in the initial wait time, and I am much worse off. For the folks who live in apartments (which just so happen to be close to the arterials) it is much worse. They get delayed by folks like me, who live in the houses. You have a system that favors the few, and makes things worse for the many.

That is the crux of the problem. Of course there are places with ridership so low that only van-pool service will work. Using a smart phone to order service will make that better. So will advanced computer analytics, to smooth out those trips. But the only way that can be cost effective is if the van picks up lots of other people along the way. And that means it is slow.

Having the systems be smarter doesn’t change the equation. Either you are spending a lot more per rider (so that the rider can ride on demand and get a reasonably direct ride) or you are providing a slow ride. That is what Walker is getting at, and despite the fact that he keeps providing evidence to back that up, there are still folks who think that van-pools have suddenly become “disruptive” and are now a better, more cost effective way to get around.

Yup, this is problem with microtransit. A ride that goes to your door sounds great, until you have to suffer through all the twists and turns necessary to go to everybody else’s door.

Long before the term “microtransit” existed, there were airport shuttle services under brands like Super Shuttle or Shuttle Express, which perform, what is, effectively, microtransit to and from the airport. I quickly realized that if the bus is anything remotely decent, and you don’t have a lot of luggage to carry, you can get where you’re going just as quickly, with much better travel-time reliability, and for a lot less money, just by riding the plain old bus.

What I think is so enticing about microtransit is that, while buses are very efficient at scaling up, microtransit is great at scaling down, to the point where, if you’re the old one whose using it, it works great, as our STB writer observed at Eastgate. But, at soon as other people start using, the travel times and wait times very quickly become unpredictable. You’ll have occasions where the van is traveling up a major road (e.g. 148th) carrying people whose trips look “on the way” as the crow flies, only to observe the van on the ground spending most of its time waiting at stoplights to make left turns on and off 148th, as different passengers have destinations on different sides of the street. Or occasions where all the vans are busy carrying other passengers and you have to wait 20-30 minutes for one to show up. Of course, these problems can theoretically go away by increasing the number of drivers and vehicles to match demand, but you can’t do that without driving either the fares or the subsidies through the roof. In the real world, where the allocated subsidy is fixed, and the fares are also fixed, this means that if the service ever gets popular, all the vehicles are going to busy, and you’re just going to have to wait your turn, often for longer than it would take to wait for a fixed-route bus that runs every 30 minutes.

There are a few legitimate usages of microtransit, but they are very narrow. A replacement for paratransit, for those that can’t walk to the bus stop, but don’t need wheelchair accommodations or trained professionals is one. Another is as a temporary pilot to gauge demand in a suburban area that would otherwise lack transit service – with the understanding that if the route ever gets too popular for a single microtransit van to be able to handle, it gets replaced with a fixed-route bus (with data collected by the microtransit pilot used as an aide to determine the precise routing that this fixed-route bus would take).

Several years ago, I was regularly using Microsoft’s shuttles to get between buildings on campus. It’s effectively microtransit – you call a dispatcher or book online for a shuttle from Building 10 to Building 20, and you get an ETA of a shuttle that’ll get you there after stopping by several other buildings to pick up or drop off people who look like they’re on the way.

I often had to spend just as much time waiting as it would’ve taken to bike the whole way. Then, when I was on the shuttle, we’d be spending that much time again dodging into and out of other buildings’ parking lots to give everyone service at the door. Finally, I got fed up and started riding my bike; I haven’t stepped aboard an on-campus shuttle in years.

“Yes, but as you suggest, these people just won’t use transit. They might take a cab, but that isn’t transit.”

Yet theyre the ones saying microtransit is revolutionary and will make buses obsolete. They’re the ones we have to watch out for or we’ll lose our buses, as a few cities have found when they replaced coverage routes with Uber agreements that end up excluding the poor from riding.

As to whether or not it’s “transit”, that depends on where transit ends. I can accept that taxis, microvans, and even Uber are a kind of transit because you don’t own the vehicle and aren’t driving yourself, and the system is open-access (i.e., open to anyone who pays the fare). But they’re a very inefficient and costly form of transit. And that’s why it’s wrong to have only them available.

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